Hezbollah, through direct strikes on Israel or terrorist attacks, could complicate Israel's decision to attack Iran and spark an even greater regional crisis.

As the day approaches when Israel may decide to launch a preemptive strike against Iran in order to cripple its nuclear infrastructure, Israeli policymakers and their allies abroad would carefully assess how the Lebanese-based group Hezbollah would react.

Although Israel is unlikely to launch an attack on Iran prior to the U.S. Presidential election in November, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is said to be running out of patience and is becoming more vocal in warning that Iran’s nuclear program could cross Israel’s so-called “red line” by next spring or summer at the latest. Other factors, including the outcome of the U.S. elections, the outcome of the P5+1- Iran talks that are expected to follow the U.S. Presidential Election, growing instability in neighboring Syria, and the outcome of the early elections that Netanyahu has just called, will all factor into Israel’s decision on whether to use force against Tehran, and if so, when.

But perhaps no single factor, besides Iran’s nuclear program itself, will be as important in influencing Israel’s strategic assessment as the realization that attacking Iran risks sparking a war on several fronts; that is, one that not only invites retaliation from Iran, but very likely from its regional ally and sometimes proxy, Hezbollah. With the debacle of the 2006 war against the Lebanese group still fresh in Israeli minds, the possibility that the Shi’a organization would renew hostilities against the Jewish state through cross-border raids, terrorism, or rocket attacks against its cities, will have to be part of Israel’s calculations for any “day after” scenario.

Besides helping create the “Party of God” on the anvil of the Lebanese civil war and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) invasion of Southern Lebanon in 1982, Iran’s support for Hezbollah has become multifaceted over the years, and now includes: military training, arms transfers, intelligence and, perhaps most crucially, financial support. Although a fair share of the funding provided by Tehran has gone towards building schools and hospitals, as well as the provision of social services in poor Shi’ite neighborhoods in Lebanon, the aid has also helped the organization’s militant wing. Moreover, Hezbollah fighters are known to have received extensive training from, and to be working closely with, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). While Hezbollah is now a political party competing in elections and an important social force in long-neglected parts of Lebanon, and while it has for the most part ceased serving as an extension of the Islamic Republic, its armed wing’s ability to inflict pain on Israel remains a powerful bargaining chip, if not an adequate deterrent against an Israeli attack on Iran. As journalist Nicholas Blanford wrote in a recent book on the organization:

“the billions of dollars Iran has spent on Hezbollah since 2000 was not an altruistic gift to help Lebanon defend itself against the possibility of future Israeli aggression … through Hezbollah, Iran has established a bridgehead on Israel’s northern border, enhancing its deterrence posture and expanding its retaliatory options in the event of an attack on the Islamic Republic.”

Indeed, Hezbollah packs a formidable punch. According to IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Naveh, Hezbollah today has at least 60,000 rockets and missiles in its arsenal, or about ten times the number it had during the 34-day war in 2006. While the organization had few rockets that were capable of hitting Tel Aviv during that conflict, today it is said to have several thousands in its arsenal capable of doing so.

In addition to the short- and medium-range rockets, Western intelligence assesses that Hezbollah has acquired a Syrian version of the Iranian Fateh-110 surface-to-surface missile, with a range of 200-300km, and may have received Russian-made SA-8 tactical air-defense systems. Hezbollah is also suspected of possessing a number of Chinese systems that were reverse-engineered by Iran or Syria, including the Raad anti-ship missile, the Misagh-2 MANPAD, and the B302 rocket, a Syrian version of the Chinese WS-1 multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS). Other rockets in Hezbollah's arsenal include the Iranian Fajr-3 (42km), Fajr-5 (~70km), and the Zalzel I/II(125/210km).

In recent years, Hezbollah has placed medium- and long-range rockets deeper inside Lebanon and further away from the border with Israel. According to Daniel Byman of the Brookings Institution, many of those are concealed in homes. Such an arsenal, added to geographical proximity, has led some Israeli security officials to argue that an attack by Hezbollah would be more dangerous than Iranian retaliation following a preemptive strike against Tehran’s nuclear facilities.

So far, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has revealed little of his organization’s intentions vis-à-vis Israel should Iran be attacked, though he told Lebanese media in September that Iran would lash out not only at Israel proper, but also against U.S. military bases across the region. On the other hand, a senior military advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, recently said that Israeli leaders are placing their constituents “a step away from the grave” because “Hezbollah, will easily respond” if Iran is attacked. While we can only guess which account is most accurate, and though it may be tempting to imagine that Hezbollah would instantly spring into action if Iran was attacked, the group faces constraints of its own that could limit its options.

For one, both the Hezbollah leadership and the Iranian government would have to consider that an all-out attack by Hezbollah against Israeli would have deadly consequences for the organization and Lebanese state. In other words, if its militants were to unleash thousands of rockets and missiles against Israel, the IDF would conceivably respond with overwhelming force, triggering a war from which the Shi’a organization might not be able to recuperate. The Israeli military learned several valuable lessons from its misadventure in 2006, and we can expect that IDF forces will be far better prepared in the next war than they were last time.

For its part, even if the 2006 war bolstered its credentials as a resistance force across the greater Middle East, Hezbollah suffered a serious credibility blow at home for the systematic damage the war caused to Lebanon’s infrastructure. Nasrallah himself subsequently admitted his organization had miscalculated and that had he known of the IDF’s response beforehand, he likely would have called off the cross-border raids that sparked the war. In other words, Israel’s deterrent credibility this time around, added to Hezbollah’s need to act responsibly to ensure the welfare of ordinary Lebanese (what Blanford terms Hezbollah’s increasingly “Lebanocentric attitudes”), could persuade it against launching an all-out retaliation against Israel.

This underscores the central dilemma Hezbollah has faced in recent times: namely, its need to honor its commitments to the Islamic Republic without jeopardizing the crucial support it enjoys among its coalition partners and constituents in Lebanon.

In the context of responding to an Israeli attack on Iran, this dilemma could push Nasrallah towards the option that comports an element of deniability: terrorism. Rather than launch military strikes against Israel proper, Hezbollah, acting on its own or in cooperation with the IRGC, could decide to launch attacks against Israeli or American interests abroad, such as embassies, cultural centers, and so on. While the point of origin of a rocket can easily be traced, the intelligence work that is required to identify the individuals or organizations behind a terror attack can take months and will often times yield inconclusive results, thus making it more difficult politically for Israel to retaliate.

Consequently, while placating the Islamic Republic by attacking Israeli interest, Hezbollah would mitigate the risks of overwhelming retaliation against its positions within Lebanon. The group’s military wing, the Islamic Resistance, may have lost its terror master, Imad Mugniyeh, in a 2008 car bombing (presumably the work of Israeli intelligence), but there is little doubt it retains the ability to orchestrate devastating attacks worldwide, such as the bombing of the Buenos Aires Jewish community’s AMIA building in July 1994, in which 85 people were killed and more than 300 injured.

Some analysts have also speculated that Hezbollah could ramp up its militant activities outside Lebanon to destabilize the region and thereby complicate Israel’s plans to derail the Iranian nuclear program — a sort of preemptive move by Iran to nix Israel’s own preemptive attack. The ongoing uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, an ally of Iran and Hezbollah, is proving both a threat and opportunity for the organization. A longtime backer of Hezbollah, Syria’s al-Assad regime has served as an arms conduit to the organization and propped it up politically within Lebanon, even after Syrian troops were forced to withdraw from Lebanon in 2005 amid political backlash from Lebanese citizens and demands from the UN following the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February of that year.

Because it is drawn largely from the Alawite sect, al-Assad’s regime, like Iran and Hezbollah, believes it is threatened by Sunni Muslims, including the rebel groups that are seeking to overthrow it. The war in Syria is quickly becoming internationalized, with Damascus and Tehran claiming that Israel, the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are actively aiding the rebels. Indeed, the regional and extra-regional ramifications of the uprising in Syria have been underscored by the ongoing exchange of mortar fire between Turkey and Syria over the past week.

Despite Hezbollah’s continued denials, there are strong reasons to believe that Hezbollah fighters are on the ground in Syria, to some degree or another. Moreover, Iran and Hezbollah do not want to see their Syrian ally fall and be replaced by a Sunni-led government or complete chaos. At the same time, the possibility that Syria could spiral out of control and spark a regional war could also convince Israel that the timing is not right to launch a preemptive strike against Iran, though delaying this attack would give Iran more time to make further advances on its nuclear program. In other words, Iran and Hezbollah could regard instability in Syria as a useful sideshow to prevent an attack by Israel, and thus could decide to add fuel to the flames of conflict there.

The challenges posed by the Iranian nuclear program are numerous, with many of the different nodes being interrelated. The problem is made all the more intractable by an increasingly volatile region that is sharply divided along sectarian lines. Hezbollah is but one of the many players involved, but should it choose to do so, it has the capacity to inflict great harm on Israel. As such, any future plans by Israel cannot afford to not take the organization into account. And while several factors would militate against Hezbollah directly retaliating against Israel, Hezbollah has a number of other options — including intensifying the proxy war in Syria or conducting asymmetric attacks against Israeli interests in third party countries— by which it can complicate Israel’s choices before the Jewish state launches operations against Iran, or inflict pain should such a course of action be adopted.

Jews [territorialy-wise] want the Suez Canal to the Tigris-Euphrates River outlet to the Persian Gulf (NOTHING LESS)... All the rest of the crap you read or are force-fed by the Jew controlled media is horseshit...

Jews want peace, but they just refuse to accept how to get it, i.e., the second commandment - love thy neighbor as thyself ===> value others as oneself. That bit of sage advice from their Creator has fallen on deaf ears again and again. Hence, the cycles of history.

Jews need to be forced to shower, regularly, otherwise the place starts to stink...and right now, it fucking stinks!

I have no idea as to why Americans fight for the Jew, but I do know this; that when things get bad people always ask questions and eventually wise-up. Then they realise the cause of their problems and take action. This is why the Jews have been persecuted so many times throughout history.

Perhaps if the Jews spent more time looking at the root cause of their problems (ie their fucking arrogant 'Chosen One' religion) and less time playing the victim-martyr, they'd have that peace they'd longed for-for millennia. Hello, common denominator fuck heads!

Smart enough to get others to suffer for them yet dumb enough to never find what they seek...now that's living a life of hell.

I say let them have their nukes and let them turn their holy land into a glass house.

PS. you can vote me down all you like, it doesn't change the truth. So go find a wall to cry on, maybe it will listen to you.

With Mitt Romney the US will bring big offers for these to fulfill the Israelis wishes. In Europe there is absolute no support for US war politics. That is boring, you can not start nice discussions as we had in the past, everybody agrees US war politic is a complete failure.

The top 6 leaders of Iran and the top 6 leaders of Israel need to be put in a sealed room and given 48 hours to find a peaceful solution to their differences. If there is no solution after 48 hours then one member from each side should be shot. Every 24 hours after that the process repeats until a solution is agreed upon.

It has regularly crossed my mind that these maniacs who call themselves leaders are only interested in their rhetoric and their positions. As far as I am concerned it is far better that they be sacrificed in the search for peace rather than have their youth sacrificed by the thousands with all the attendant destruction to innocent humans and infrastructure.

Oh Yeah, here we go again, another failed war of conquest where the US taxpayers are milked dry, and our soldiers bled dry, based on another phony 'existential' threat to Israel. Only the military industrial complex, and a very few insiders benefit while schools are closed and infrastructure falls to pieces.

exactly, and for sure there is some neocon white paper somewhere these guys are passing around which completely belittles any third/fourth party threats as inconsequential>>>see we told you not to worry here look

The day the 3rd Reich collapsed was the day the Jews created the 4th Reich. At least Hitler came out into the open.

India has the common courtesy to confine their Caste System to their own ethnicity, whereas the Jew applies their Caste System to everyone except the Jew. If you're not a Jew, then you're there for the Jew. That's baked into judaism at the most fundumental level...'Chosen', and above all others.

Religious Bigotry manifests as curse.

PS. you can vote me down all you like, it doesn't change the truth. So go find a wall to cry on, maybe it will listen to you.

It makes sense big-time. When you have learned history, you too will understand. Hint: as a rhetorical device, sarcasm is the employment of words to mean the opposite of what they would normally mean. Throughout history, kings and queens never fought??

Frankly, there wasn't much difference between now and then. Only the weapons have changed. Americans think war isn't happening now because of 'democracy', but that's patently bullshit. We're waging plenty o'war, it's just we're doing it all offshore, on the periphery of our empire.

There wasn't much war within the Roman Empire, either, which, after Julius, was essentially monarchical.

Democracy doesn't stop wars of choice and conquest; two centuries of US military history show that very clearly.

I think the Syrian distraction gives Israel cover ! These Muzzlim Fucks have passed their aptitude grade ! Attack while they're confused .... even more than their default confusion ! Go for 'em .... like OJ with a Stiletto .... slitting throats and and nicking neckbones !

I'd pay your plane ticket to go over there so you can spout your bullshit. You'd either end up carved up like a Christmas turkey, or so humbled and changed you'd go become a silent monk. Either way, it would be fun to watch.

Wasn't that a guerilla war on Lebanese soil? It would be very different if Hezbollah invaded israel. Firing a couple hundred rockets will be scary for Israelis, but its far from being a catastrophic attack. Even chemical or biological weapons would probably kill more Hezbollah than Israelis.

Maybe, maybe not. When the chips are down, Israel will call on our own dear leaders to pull their chestnuts out of the fire, and O'Romney will ask: How high?

It would be bad for PR but I can see the US flattening Lebanon with daisy cutters. After all, AhMeDinnerJacket is the New Hitler! Or is that Nasrallah? Can there be two Hitlers at once? Can his incarnations bilocate?

I get so confused. Maybe Henry 'kiss-off' Kissinger can help us out with some of this tricky ethics stuff. Worked out pretty well in Cambodia, as I recall.

The pictures of maimed and dying lebanese kids on international news be a magnet for every piece of ordnance not tied down, and even some that are on tel aviv. Israel would be committing suicide. It's a very tragic situation for the innocents. Netanyahu should burn in hell for eternity. He and many others in that government have blood of millions on their hands. Fuck, this makes me mad.

From a historical context, Israel would've in a slightly different situation if/when they can no longer rely on the us empire. Imagine a time when the us no longer dominates the world's seas, and stops giving them the world's most sophisticated weapons systems. They are surrounded. It would be wise to start making friends with their neighbors. I pray more sane people get power there, otherwise, the human suffering could be heartbreaking.

You turn all of the land currently under Zionist control over to Sweden* (a neutral country) and withdraw all of your people to a non-muslim land(s).

* saves the Zionists from having to decide whether to turn the Zionist-occupied lands over to Hamas or Fatah or Hezbollah or ...

On the other hand, if you've decided that you want to ensure that the Nation of Israel survives, then you must do whatever it takes to defend against those who would destroy it. When rocket launchers are installed on school playgrounds, hospital parking lots, and private homes, a decision to defend the country necessarily means a decision to kill many innocents (whose blood would be upon the hands of those who installed the rocket launchers). The only othe option, as stated, is to give the occupied lands to a neutral third party and walk away. I don't think the Zionists will do that.

You mean the Lebanese civilians will get crushed right? Because the first thing Israel started bombing in 2006 was critical infrastructure... water plants, power, bridges... yeah let's do collective punishment on the Lebanese people!! Let's do war crimes!! YAY!

I mean, it's like if a bunch of republican from New York city attacked the White House and then the US army started carpet bombing the isle of Manhattan... because you know... it's the fault of New Yorkers for not taking out those radical republicans before they committed their crimes!

They can't stop themselves. The irony of it, Israel provokes its neighbors then cries victim. It treats the Palestinians like animals and worse, then demands reparations for allegedly receiving the same treatment by the nazis. They spread hatred war and division and yet believe they were chosen to bring peace and justice to the world. The only logical conclusion I can draw is collective insanity.

You don't understand, John. It's all the other Arab's fault for not giving a home to those displaced Palestinians. Who are all Egyptians, anyway. Or something. Land without a People! People without a Land!

It's like, if your brother and his family get turfed out of their house by robbers in a home invasion, and are consequently homeless, do you blame the robbers? No, of course not - they're victims of society! No, it's YOUR fault they're homeless... cause you didn't build them a new house!

Either you do know the history of Palestine and are being intentionally misleading. Or you don't know the history of Palestine but are speaking out anyway. I don't know which option reflects on you the worst.

I think you've been sucking blood out of too many circumcisions if you think the 33 day war went well for Israel. An Israeli commander lost his job over it. P.S. Fuck Your Tribe, you're not fooling anyone.

The Israeli gov is a fluffy dog covered in gasoline and gunpowder with a lit kerosene lamp tied to its collar chasing a squirrel through an untidy bomb factory.

Netenyahu is a fucking lunatic. It's very sad. There are many innocent and ignorant people living in Israel. Probalistically, they are unlikely to fare well, and could start a conflict that ends human life on this planet.

Dumbfuck, I know these fucking people. Go spend 10 years as an army NCO and officer, with enabling learning objectives of your friends getting blown the fuck apart by RPGs, and tell me the fuck what I don't know you fucking ignorant asshole.

And since all they are really doing is attempting to deflect criticism from other areas of policy and not *really* start an actual war, they will be caught with their pants around their ankles when it really happens. It doesn't matter the real political reasons for acting bellicose, sooner or later the thing takes on a life and momentum of its own and hell follows with it.

What do you mean what are they going to do about Hezbollah? It's going be a regular fuckin firefight is what's going to happen to Hez-bowl-ah. 25,000 IDF commandoes who've been trained to win wars in 6 hours guarding the border and enough Surface-to-Surface missiles to light up every kitchen in Lebanon. Hezbollah will come-a-charging right into Israel to leave the fire behind them and will get vaporized before they even reach the border.

Asymmetric warfare? I don't think Hezbollah's little rockets are going to cause any concern. Furthermore, Israeli has no need to invade Lebanon, they only need to keep them out. Hezbollah will come to Israel when they see their Iranian and Syrian comrades getting slaughtered. All wars are asymmetric anyway, otherwise there would be no winners. Spare me your underdog vote.

Sorry but if Israel intends to win this... they NEED to invade the whole of Lebanon... and then probably the western backed FSA will side with Hezbollah and Assad to attack Israeli troops and then it'll be NATO + Israel VS Syria/Iran/Lebanon and Russia arming them... while Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and Pakistan go crazy.

I fully understand your reference - and I believe this dates back to WW1?

My point (which you may have missed) is that in Modern Warfare, "the boys" have an unfortunate habit of returning home "not quite intact".

And History (US AND European) has clearly shown that in reality the casualties of war are rather quickly forgotten. We ALL "Remember the Dead" on Nov 11th, then quietly forget about the LIVING WOUNDED for the rest of the year.

There is a tendency on this site and others to trivialise war. War (and rumour of war) cease to be a trivial affair when the consequences affect you or your families.

Pakistan will begin sending in nukes. India will use the opportunity to hit Pakistan. China will descend into Afgahnistan to liberate them from American Corportism and build a pipeline directly to Iranian oil reserves. Japan will get the US to attack China indirectly over the islands incidents. China will bomb Taiwan. Then the ICBMs from Russia will be detected on their way to the US as they pass over Europe. The EU will retaliate with NATO nukes against Russia. And then its going to be a long winter.

Getting to the point where countries won't want to waste oil on ships and tanks and planes and troop and transport carriers; a couple missles will accomplish 100's of billions of barrels of oil and 500,000 bodies.

I wonder if we'll ever make it long enough to step into the incinerator machines voluntarily when the enemy computer "hits" our sector of the city with virtual missles?

Morale amongst the reservist 'grunts' in IDF is apparently very low, and many parents/families/friends of those called up are deeply concerned for another 2006 routing, or worse. Excellent movie from one of the 2006 grunts, who also happened to be a movie producer. This doco shows 'life on the front' in the rawest form, without fanciful embelishment, and ends is highly critical of both Israeli policy, and the military prosecution of the policy:

When you begin to behave like 'non-terrorists', I'll take steps towards acknowledging your right to be recognized as a state (which is a status that SHOULD be earned ~ NOT 'force-fed')... Until then... Fuck the fuck off...

trying to separate 'Zionists' from 'Jews' = FAIL... OK sure, I have as much sympathy for the same nimwit Jew on the street as everyone else... But if you're a 'NIMWIT' Jew (iow ~ unaware of the 'Zionists' in your midst , & then use that as a blanket to be absolved from association, then that's YOUR crime ~ put down the goddamned gefilte fish plate & make a stand... Do they do that? NO!... Instead, the average Jew just wants to profiteer from the advantage)... Like this dude here...

Sure ~ Not the only 'criminal' on the planet (but why don'e we ever see these stories reported)?

As soon as I see some consternation from Jews about the behavior of Zionists (which they seem to relish using a surgical scalpel to separate from but which, = FAIL)... I'll change my views... But all I have so far are a bunch of fcking Steven Spielberg holocaust movies... So I'm figuring that the playing field is TILTED, thus far, with regards to media coverage...

If as a Jew you espouse any less than pro-Zionist views, you will be labeled an anti-Semitic Nazi sympathizer. I know because it happened to me. It disgusts me when I see people so enthralled by emotion and sentimentality as the Jews I know are with Israel. There is no point arguing with them, because, while they won't admit it, their position logically entails, for them, that Palestinians and Arabs are not of the same worth as Jews and are all violent, backward, rabid terrorists. But if you accuse them of racism, they simply say "look at the Arab world", if you say "look at what Zionist meddling has done to the Arab world" you return to square one, being a Jew-hater. For most it is just a token of "Jewish identity" whatever the fuck that means, taken on faith. You cannot make people see what they don't wish to see.

I toast that with a swig of my own brew. I call it Fuck You Brew, as in fuck you HE..BREW... I have no problem with most Jews as I'm a Constitutionalist and believe in freedom of religion, however the Zionist motherfuckers need to go away... Yesterday. They are holding us hostage and are about to get us in a situation that will change history.

Hebollah is a dangerous wildcard ( and the probable delivery system of any putative Iranian nuke) but having 60,000 rockets is not the same as being able to launch them. The Israeli military would seek to both intercept those that were launched, kill those that were launching them and destroy the stockpiles of those that had not been launched. They would do this with even greater violence than in prior episodes. Having tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers driving into Lebanon would be what Arafat faced when the PLO was expelled from the country. A force Hezbollah could neither stop nor escape from.

Politics aside, the main threat as all know would be the hezzies lobbing rockets into Israel. All IDF needs to do is keep borders closed up to infiltrators and make a move into their territory to turn attention away from and stamp out firing locations (probably avoid urban areas).

"While both governments had previously praised the drill as a testament to their unshakeable ties, the United States in early September announced its decision to significantly scale down its participation -- from 5,000 troops to some 1,500. The Pentagon also said that the Patriot systems will arrive in Israel without their crews and that it will send just one Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense warship instead of two."

Now if someone could blow up Dimona, maybe that whole fucking area could be radioactive for the next 1000 years so everybody has to GTFO and we never hear about this hell hole of a place ever again in our lifetime??

Me being a cynic, I wonder just how long it'll be before the Mainstream electronic games industry produces a "Drone Insurgent Attack Flight Simulator", which will be actively marketed Worldwide.

Once this has "set the pace" for a large number of followers with significant acquired practice skills, wouldn't it be "oh so convenient" for some hacker group to be blamed for "hacking into the DOD Systems so that the on line players were somehow flying real drones, targeting real civilians".

Such a tempting and technically easy opportunity for quite some False Flag event.

Now imagine this... using increasingly complex and realistic physics/AI free onilne games (stuff like world of tanks) for regular people to play... without realizing that what people are doing is actually teaching drone AIs on possible movements and scenarios.

As the day approaches when Israel may decide to launch a preemptive strike against Iran in order to cripple its nuclear infrastructure, Israeli policymakers and their allies abroad would carefully assess how the Lebanese-based group Hezbollah would react.

Israhell won't have time to worry about Hezbolla, they'll be taking Russian ICBM strikes on their cities, military bases, etc.

Russia and China have vowed to defend Iran against any attack from Israhell or the US. It'll be WWIII and Israhell will be turned to glass and ash first ...and they deserve it.

O'bidens want to reduce our nuke inventory to 300. I guess wiping out russia and china within the next 30 days should do just that for us. Fuck 'em, tired of their shit. We'll take their oil and women and turn the rest over to Wall Street.

US doesn't have the balls to fire a nuke at anyone. It would be the end of America. China would crash our currency once and for all, and we'd be taking the next few waves of Russian ICBMs after they turn Israhell to glass.

we'd be taking the next few waves of Russian ICBMs after they turn Israhell to glass.

It sounds like you mean that, in short order, Russia would defeat both Israel and the United States. Do you seriously think that, right now, Russia can defeat Israel and the United States?? Like, do you think Russia actually has the ability to do it, nevermind whether they actually have the desire to try it?

President Barack Hussein Obama AKA Barry Soetoro AKA Barry the Rat, the south side Chicago back alley socialist insurgent pimp, just signed another Executive Order. You know, President Obama, who isn’t a Zionist puppet, who will not follow orders from Tel Aviv, who doesn’t really like those Jews all that much anyways.

Say hello to the Executive Order from the President regarding Authorizing the Implementation of Certain Sanctions Set Forth in the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012 and Additional Sanctions with respect to Iran?New sanctions fall under Iran Threat Reduction Act of 2012?New sanctions close loopholes on the existing sanctions against Iran?Adds penalties for those companies who aid Iran’s business sectors.?Punishes parent companies of subsidiaries that violate sanctions.

So, in other words, the Israeli Zionists have ordered that Iran be cut off from the world and the bank accounts of anyone who violates this dictate seized.

And how is this international outrage to be enforced? Ooohhh, I see, that’s why we have been deploying our troops all around the world, to Australia, to South America, to Africa, and most recently (today) to Jordon on the Syrian border. It looks like an escalation to invasion to me (sanctions are an act of war). This will be an invasion that could lead to World War III.

Does it make sense? Oh yes, it makes sense, dollars and cents. But the Nobel Peace Prize winning Barack the Ordained One Obama wouldn’t purposely lead the United States into World War III, would he? Of course he will, oy, I’m telling you.

This is an act of war, as sanctions, by definition, represent just that. War can only be declared by Congress. This Executive Order violates the Constitution. It is an act of treason. This is our lives we are talking about here.

Are we going to allow this dictator to precipitate the deaths of millions of us as a result of his soviet socialist insurgency? I guess it has been a while. Maybe the sheeple need to be taken out and slaughtered like the herd animals they are, again, so we can remember why World War I was the War to End All Wars, until we forgot. But surely World War II….nope, we forgot again. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

God bless the Republic, death to the international corporate mafia, we shall prevail.

Sanctions against Iran's financial system were part of the original sanctions put together at the U.N. Russia and China vetoed them - so the financial sanctions were not included in the sanctions that were ultimately approved. This is just an end run around Russia's veto at the U.N.

Obama says that sanctions are an effort to avoid war. Why do you think he doesn't mean that?

Israel got whacked really hard in 2006 because the Hezbollah learned how to fight smart, fight hard and to acquire the right weapons to wage a defensive war with an offensive potential based on simple rockets.

Now they have upgraded to even better weapons. IN 2006 it took around 4 hits by anti tank rockets or missiles to get a kill against the formidable Israeli tanks. Now I suspect they have some one hit, one kill anti tank missiles. In 2006 they laid what Israeli special forces called "the ambush from hell" and did serious damage to the ultra elite Israeli special forces unit they lured into their ambush.

Many Hezbollah traveled to Iran and trained there for a long period in the tactics of smart defense. This training paid off. In fact Syria converted some former tank and conventional units into Hezbolla type infantry fighters. Infantry properly used in defense and well equipped with small anti tank and anti aircraft missiles and using prepared defensive postions in depth with lots of well laid mines can give a conventional force in close quarters a very hard time.

Israel is in no hurry to move on Hezbolla again, they will if they have to, but they know it will be no picnic. Most likely they will strike deep behind Hezbolla postions and hope by taking their rear to cut them off. But I suspect Hezbolla has supplies in their combat zone to last for many months of combat. Hezbolla is quite simply a formidable infantry defensive force. Israel lost enough eilte troops and some of the best tanks in the world to these guys. Hezbolla ain't no Iraqi army!

This is a pretty even handed recap. And yes, IDF got their asses handed to them. Hezbollah are an extremely tough, effective fighting force. They fight smart and they are backed by sophisticated Iranian hardware and software (not to mention Russian and Chinese). They are tolerated even by Lebanese who don't love them because they are an effective deterrent. No army can expect to just walk into Lebanon (anymore) and not pay dearly.

Hezbollah hid their men and weapons amongst civilians. Israel's hesitance to obliterate that human shield is the primary reason that Hezbollah was not obliterated. And that is the lesson Israel learned. The only alternative to not killing the civilians that provide a human shield for Hezbollah will be to walk away from defending the National of Israel. I think Israel learned that, if they are going to successfully defend the Nation of Israel, they will have to overcome Hezbollah's human defense shield. If any altercation takes place, I expect to see Hezbullah crushed, along with their human shield. That innocent blood will be on Hezbollah's hands. The only alternative is for the Zionists to walk away from the land, and I don't think they will do that.

The U.S. is teaching the Israelis how to use the equipment that the U.S. is bringing to them. The defense is of Israel, the land. No one has claimed this drill has anything to do with defending the United States.

Yes, it is alright - if one has bought into the notion that the Nation of Israel should survive, and therefore must be defended. If you don't buy into that notion, then my point here is without merit.

In the attacks against Israel in 1948 and 1967, the men and machines arrayed against Israel vastly outnumbered the men and machines defending Israel. The odds were overwhelmingly against Israel. Think that one through. Any weapons Israel can obtain to even the odds against them militarily can be morally justified - even if only on the grounds that such weapons make others think twice before attacking them.

Since the number of men and machines arrayed against Israel still vastly outnumber the men and machines available to defend Israel, any claim that Iran needs nuclear weapons to "level the playing field" with Israel is without merit.

Talking about whether Israel has a right to exist is a distraction. If Israel cannot defend herself, she will cease to exist. The issue is not whether might makes right. The fact is, might carries the day. Therefore, if Israel wants to survive as a nation, their might must be greater than the might of their enemies.

A common interpretation of the words in the Bible have the nations of the earth coming against Israel and conquering Jerusalem - supposedly at some point in the future. The point made in the Bible (at least the interpretation) is that Israel is being overrun and defeated until God steps in and defeats Israel's enemies. If that interpretation is correct, whose might is it that will ensure Israel's survival? It doesn't appear that it will be Israel's might or the might of the U.S.

The whole Iran threat is a smokescreen used by Netanyahoo to take attention away from Israeli terrorism in Palastine. Netanyahoo will not attack Iran, he has nothing to gain, and will lose the ability to distract everyone in Israel and the US from what he is doing on the ground. The Zionists want attention on Iran so that it is not on them.

I find it astonishing that this really weird alliance between the Fortress America Birchers and the Outward-looking Neocons has lasted as long as it has.

We all know, do we not, that the Birchers are essentially anti-Semitic and always have been?

They may believe in a sort of American Empire, but a very archaic one, isolationist in the extreme, a Gothic Castle surrounded by a moat full of dragons.

Of course, American Jews of all political stripes can't even talk about this anymore, because both major parties, for different reasons, are behaving subserviently to the Likud Alliance.

That is NOT the case, of course, within Israel, where anti-Likud viewpoints are welcome in what is ironically a much more open political media environment.

Oh, well - at least some of us remember that like the US, Israel was in the not-so-distant past an admirable and sane country with strongly cooperative roots, which sought to be a model for its region of effective but compassionate development - Miracle in the Desert, I believe was the term.

What do you think Chaim Weizmann or Golda Meir would think of the Neocons?

How horrified would they be that certain prominent Jews on Wall Street have been sleeping in the same bed as the Koch Brothers and Mr. Ricketts?

Koch Brothers are Jewish. The Birchers don't realize they are supporting the same Jews they hate. They are simply that short-sighted. Or perhaps the Jews saw an opportunity in the Birchers - that their irrationality could be used as a weapon and directed at their non-Jewish enemies

During the Inquisition many Rabbis surrendurred to Rome and joined the "hybrid" (combined church/state). Later, one of if not the greatest gift ever given to the Rabbis was Rome's permission to re-print the Talmud after it was banned (a book with quotes you'd wrongly think Rome would prefer banned, such as, "...Jesus was the offspring of Mary the whore and Roman guard Pantera...Jesus boils in excrement for eternity...even the best of the gentiles deserve only death...") During one of the eras in which the Talmud was banned the Rabbis gave Jesus code name Pantera.

Several years ago the oxymoronic "Roman Catholic" church made official declaration that anyone who believes the so-called "j-e-w-s" ("jew" first appeared in print in 1775 AD, the Biblical term is Ioudaios, Hebrew, Israelite) killed Christ goes straight and immediately and only to hell.

Scripture rightly declares the truth who killed Jesus four times (3x in Acts, 1x in 1 Thessalonians). Hint, it's not Rome but rather Ioudaios, the same who ate their children (Dueteronomy, Josephus) and sawed Isaiah in half next to the temple.

The west made up the holocaust to displace Ioudaios murdering Jesus, mankind's worst all-time crime.

To say Rome is not run by the Talmud is naive or simple and ubiquitous Talmudic obfuscation.

Nonsense. Meir was an avid socialist. An Iron Lady - but of a very different kind from Margaret Thatcher.

(Place photos of the two of them side by side, and you will immediately have insight into the difference.)

And the fact that once again, the Koch Bots come out and give thumbs down to every balanced and sensible post I - or anyone else - makes shows how much of the Internet the Birchers have bought and paid for. And why they NEED to be stopped.

Classic sio-prop smokescreen, this piece by a former intelligence officer for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (focused on Middle East and Afghanistan!!!) uses talk of Hezbollah merely as a springboard to move on to the real theme...

re-establishing in the mind of the reader the notion of 'terrorism' as the preserve of the Muslim, who roams the world in search of targets on which to perform acts of unspeakable barbarity.,,,

all the while shielding their own identity as the true propagators and masters of 'terrorism' = in fact, owners of the world's only true terrorist state...and epicenter of modern barbarism.

Buenos Aires, July 18 94,(http://rehmat1.com/2009/07/23/amia-was-mossad-false-flag-operation/?like=1) London July 26 94, Buigaria July 19 2012, the entire string of poorly disguised theatrical events in Thailand, Georgia, Cyprus, etc. etc.,.....israel will continue to kill jews in order to build the myth of Muslim terror whilst milking Merika for the moolah with which to maintain it's mossad driven false flag empire of evil.

The sionist entity is now reduced to fighting it's wars on the pages of it's propaganda organs and via it's apologists in the blogosphere...on the field of battle, their fighting forces will melt away like a snowman in July...or the credibility of 'Michael Cole'...epic fail!